Aaahhhh….the weather certainly played games with us today. But we did manage to get a photo from the front of our B&B while there was a brief reprieve from rain and fog.
Lovely, isn't it?
I do have to tell you that just a few minutes later, those mountains had disappeared from view.
Dolina, our hostess, said that was quite common for this area, and that she had been hoping that we'd get to see at least a wee bit of those mountains while we were here. I suppose that we should consider ourselves lucky!
With the wind howling and the changing weather, we bundled up and headed towards the northern part of the island to Dunvegan Castle.
Dunvegan is the oldest continuously inhabited castle in Scotland and has been the ancestral home of the Chiefs of Clan MacLeod for 800 years.
The castle stands on Loch Dunvegan, which, as you can see, is the most beautiful shade of blue.
The views from this castle were spectacular
The castle also has 5 acres of gardens which were begun in the 18th century. There was a beautiful waterfall inside one of the gardens.
There were many flowers still in bloom
A lovely gazebo stands in the walled garden
surrounded by many blooming rose bushes.
Just outside the gardens there is a path to the loch where, on most days, one can take a boat out onto the loch to view the many seals that are in the area. However, today the tours were cancelled due to the high winds. We walked down to the dock anyway and we were afforded these fabulous views of the castle from the loch.
Of course, the sudden appearance of blue skies only enhanced the beauty.
Despite the gail winds, Marty was intent on spotting some seals with his binoculars.
but such was not to be. We decided to head down to the little village of Dunvegan to check it out.
From the parking lot in the village, you can see the memorial to those who died in the Great War overlooking the village.
I don't think I've been to one town in Scotland that hasn't had a memorial to those who died in the First World War. All of the names of those men from the village who died are inscribed on the memorial.
After our brief respite, we headed back to the Talisker refinery for the tour that we had booked yesterday. And, it's a good thing that we had reserved a spot, because the next two tours were booked up! If you saw how remote this place was, you'd wonder, just as I do, how so many people make their way here. Perhaps I'd understand it better if I were a Whiskey Connoisseur.
While we were waiting for the tour to begin, I heard a woman ask the employee if there was a senior discount. She shook her head NO, and I heard her say, "If you're old enough to drink whiskey…..then we consider you to be quite lucky". In other words…..no discount. That made me laugh.
The tour began promptly, and we went through the process of making whiskey, which was pretty much identical to the tour that we had the other day.
At the end of the tour, we were given a dram of whiskey and told to swirl it, look at it, sniff it, then take a sip of it.
I did exactly what the man said, and you can take my word for it when I tell you that nothing made it taste any better.
This particular whisky is flavored with peat, which is very strong, and definitely affects the smell and the taste. It made me feel like I was sipping a campfire.
Well, here's my take on the tasting….described perfectly in the visitor center:
Smell the seaweed? Yuck! No wonder I don't like the stuff!
Marty, on the other hand, loved it. Lucky him…he got to taste his and mine, which I pretty much figured out would be happening. No worries there.
We still had a couple hours until dinner time, so we decided to drive to see if we could find the Fairy Pools. Well, we did manage to find the sign.
And we began the walk down the trail in an attempt to find them. Notice the term "down the trail" We hadn't gone far when I realized that the people returning were all breathing heavy and panting. I began to wonder just what I was getting myself into. Just how far were these Fairy Pools?
We came to one spot where a returning couple had a bit of difficulty jumping the rocks in the stream to return to the car park.
That's when I decided that I wasn't going to even try to cross that stream. I had no difficulty convincing Marty of that, since he certainly didn't want to try to drag my injured body up that hill if I slipped in an attempt to maneuver the rocks!
He was happy enough to take a photo with the Black Cullins (pronounced cool ins) behind us.
Making our way back up to the car park, we spotted these mini waterfalls that had been behind us on the way down.
I have no idea what the Fairy Pools look like, but it seemed to us that we were able to enjoy quite a bit of natural beauty without doing anything crazy. As it should be!
We headed back to the carpark
and when I peered down, I could see sheep happily munching away on the grass on the side of the road. They were quite dwarfed by the size of that mountain.
Driving back, we encountered the fluffy creatures along the side of the road
And, some even in the middle of the road.
But they were more than willing to share the road with us.
We opted to try a different hotel for dinner, the only other one within a 12 mile distance from our B&B. It ended up being quite a disappointment for me, since nearly every food contained some sort of pepper.
When we returned to the B&B, and Dolina heard my plight, she made us a lovely tea tray, complete with home made shortbread.
You just can't beat that, can you?
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